This is depressing. Are we just going to erase chunks of history because we don't like it?
Hopefully the Internet Archive can at the very least simply mark some of the content as "non-servable" or something but continue to archive it for historical or research purposes. I'm not sure how that fits in with censorship, libel, copyright, or right-to-be-forgotten laws, but hopefully the restriction is just on showing the data, not storing it.
When we have time for cooler heads to prevail, hopefully this content can be resurrected once the information is no longer as timely or relevant.
Are we just going to erase chunks of history because we don't like it?
Yes. News sites now edit articles without posting a notice or a retraction. Search engines now de-index parts of the web, citing various reasons. Activist organizations are now writing founders out of their web published history.
When we have time for cooler heads to prevail, hopefully this content can be resurrected once the information is no longer as timely or relevant.
Nope. The power to rewrite history amounts to absolute power over the consensus perception of reality. Almost no one who realizes they have such power relinquishes it voluntarily. (No modern tech company I know of resembles Cincinnatus.) The optimal plan would have involved slowly changing things over time, such that it would be barely noticed. The implementation was botched by impatient humans, however.
Stewardship over all the world's information?
Stewardship over all of the people's social links and relationships?
"Don't be evil."
(To be balanced here, many of the fringe conspiracy groups would do the same thing, if they could, and erase or rewrite parts of history. The difference is that some big corporations and governments are a lot closer to having enough power to achieve such a thing.)
More realistically, content considered in peril should be replicated on nodes outside of the Archive's control. Fun fact: Every item in the Archive can be retrieved via a torrent. I leave it as an exercise to the reader on how to retrieve the Archive's item index, ascertain least replicated items, and how to retrieve and serve them.
Hopefully the Internet Archive can at the very least simply mark some of the content as "non-servable" or something but continue to archive it for historical or research purposes. I'm not sure how that fits in with censorship, libel, copyright, or right-to-be-forgotten laws, but hopefully the restriction is just on showing the data, not storing it.
When we have time for cooler heads to prevail, hopefully this content can be resurrected once the information is no longer as timely or relevant.